


Reading

by Born In Captivity- Ineligible to Release (Jashasedai)



Series: Alternate Universe - Tame Racing Drivers [37]
Category: MotoGP RPF, Motorcycling RPF, motogp - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tame Racing Drivers, Body Language, Cats, Doubles of Every Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 13:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jashasedai/pseuds/Born%20In%20Captivity-%20Ineligible%20to%20Release
Summary: In an AU where a secret species is used as Racing Riders, the tame Racers are not allowed to learn to read.After they are free, Alvaro's Racing Rider, Badboy learns that reading words is a lot like reading body language.This is a Racing Driver interacting with a pet cat.





	Reading

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration
> 
> Prompt: Pineapple Trashcan from ChecoYourself
> 
> and
> 
> The thing I love about cats is that they’re basically born ready to throw down. There’s something strangely life-affirming about seeing a ball of fuzz that could fit in the palm of your hand with room to spare react to an unfamiliar creature literally a hundred times its size by going “I roll Intimidation”.
> 
>  
> 
> #the really life affirming part is that sometimes it works
> 
>  
> 
> This is part of the Tame Racing Drivers AU. Read the series summary.

**Reading**

**Alvaro’s House- 2017**

 

The weather was cloudy, scattered clouds floating under a sort of dreary, but still blue, sky. There was a cool wind blowing. Alvaro’s car was blue, and had a nice, if boring engine. He wouldn’t let Bad Boy drive.

His body language changed as they drove along, though.  First sending out more and more sparks of recognition, and then deeper crackles of joy and remembrance, set off by a building or an open field, or a street sign.  Soon everything he looked at was a fountain of associations.

Then his muscles sort of went tense and he turned his hand palm up on the near side and Bad Boy put his own hand in it.  Alvaro’s feeling of expectation flooded him, and as they came around the corner where he knew every step of the road from endless childhood walks, they saw his home.

The home he had grown up in.

Alvaro had elected to let his old residence go, rather than having it maintained for the duration of the refugee times.  There had been no way to tell how long they would last, and he felt his house wouldn’t be the optimal place to live, one Bad Boy was with him forever.  He had chosen instead to make sure his parents’ home would be maintained during their absence to the family camp, and now the two of them would be staying here.

While they found a new home together.

He had met Alvaro’s parents before.  They were a nice man and woman. They wouldn’t be at the house, now, so Bad Boy would have some time to settle in to the new place without a lot of fuss.

They stopped in the driveway and Alvaro not only had memories about each of the 3 buildings, a house, a garage and a toolshed, but about each tree and view and the steps to the porch, and the door, opening countless times for relatives and friends and when he’d come home from school.  It was so overwhelming that Bad Boy almost didn’t notice when they passed through it for real.

They stopped in the living room and every piece of furniture and even each of the walls held a significance for Alvaro.

He had never felt this much about any place they had ever been together.

They had been to tracks and the Annexes and the stable, in it’s two locations, and Alvaro had never felt this much about anything.  He didn’t even know Alvaro COULD feel this much. That anyone could.

His knees got soft and he sat down on the couch beside a sort of ugly furry pillow.

The pillow unfolded with a Mrrrrp noise like it was being unzipped and became a yellow cat.

Bad Boy dived over the arm of the couch into a heap on the other side to get away from it.

 

**Phillip Island- 2014**

 

It was his last year with Honda, at Phillip Island.  He was walking along the backs of the motorhomes where the trashcans were.  There usually weren’t many people back here, because the trashcans had a nasty smell, especially when it was a hot track.  Today was bad enough he could probably spend all day back here and never see another Rider or human at all.

He heard something, though.

A noise like Colin made, but much more realistic.

It was coming from between one of the big trash cans and the wall of the Aprilla motorhome.

“Brrrawww,” Said some sort of little engine.

Duende and his teammate, whichever of the twins he was, had been brought tiny, handsized motorcycles by the team.  Maybe this was one of those. It would be nice to find one of those. It would be fun to have one.

He looked behind the trash can.

It didn’t look like a motorcycle.  It had four legs. 

It revved at him again, in an organic voice.

He reached out to poke it and see what it was.

It suddenly expanded to the size of a stable and roared at him.

It’s body language was primitive, but it was clearly threatening to spring and eat him.  He screamed in fear and when he did, it batted a leg at him, stabbing him with a fistful of needles.

Bad Boy, like all Racers, was afraid of needles, and it hurt him.  He scrambled away and ran all the way back to his own motorhome as fast as he could.

‘ALVARO!!!!’

 

**Alvaro’s House- 2017**

 

[Don’t worry about her, that’s just Pineapple, she is nice.]

Bad Boy looked up from where he was crammed behind the couch beside the wall, from Alvaro’s hands to his eyes.  [Pineapple?] His hands trembled. [It is the same cat?]

Alvaro nodded, [After you went to sleep, I went and looked around by the trash cans until I found the pineapple that had attacked you.]  Bad Boy hadn’t known the word for cat, and yellow, spiky and round had only one interpretation that Alvaro could think of at the time. [She was just a baby, and she was alone.  She needed someone to love her, so I smuggled her back to my house with me. She is our roommate.]

[A baby?  She is smaller, now.]

Alvaro looked confused.  [She is much bigger, now.]

[She was bigger than this house, Alvaro, at first she was the size of my hand and then when I got close she put her hair up and she was huge and dangerous.]

Pineapple had woken up from her nap fully, now and decided to visit Alvaro.  She wove around his legs, and Bad Boy watched her with big, frightened eyes.

[She loves you,] He whispered.

When he moved his hands, she noticed him, and he dropped his eyes to the carpet, hoping to divert her attention.

She came over and said, “Wroom,” Just like his bike, but much, much smaller.  Then she nuzzled noses with him.

Her face hairs were softer than the softest pillow.  Much softer than his. She touched her forehead to him and then rubbed her chin over his face.  It left a faint, funny smell. Too weak for humans to smell.

[She put smell on me,] He told Alvaro, still not looking directly at the cat.

[That is her chin glands, she marks people that belong to her with the smell, so she knows them.]

[But I…I belong to YOU.  You are my match. I cannot belong to her.  She will eat me when she is ready.]

Alvaro picked up the cat and cuddled her.  [No, she will not. She loves you, because to her, you are me, and she loves me.]

[She loves me?]  Bad Boy started to shimmy out from behind the couch.

[Yes.  In fact, go look on that table.  I got something for you.]

Bad Boy went and picked up a paper wrapped present.  Alvaro brought him presents sometimes, and Johann had helped Bad Boy pick out and wrap presents for Alvaro.

This one, under the pale wrapping paper, was a book.  It had a picture of a white cat with brown and black spots on the front.

[This book will tell you all about cats and how to take care of them.  By the time you are finished reading it, Pineapple will be your cat.]

[I can’t read.]

[I’m going to teach you.]  Alvaro put his finger on the big word picture on the front of the book.  He traced along it’s parts, sending it’s meaning, ‘Cats. A Guide to the care and keeping of cats.’  He sent the meaning of each of the words with their picture.

Bad Boy traced his finger over the biggest 4 shapes.  Cats.

When he looked at the shapes, he knew the meaning.  Reading was going to be a lot like listening to body language.  He looked at Pineapple, rubbing her chin on Alvaro to tell him how much she loved him, then back down at the book.

Cats.

**Author's Note:**

> Real People don't belong to me.
> 
> This story is fiction and is no reflection on anyone in it. The story does belong to me, as does the AU in which it is set.


End file.
